The freshman year dorm experience is still something I look back to extremely fondly. My freshman year, I ended up living at Parkside A and H. This dorm is suite style, meaning it had 4 bedrooms, 2 baths, and housed 8 people per suite. All the rooms are spacious and is conveniently located next to the Parkside dining hall and the engineering E-quad.
My favorite part about my suite was the extreme diversity of majors we had. I was a mechanical engineering major, my roommate and two others were biology, another roommate was environmental science, one was cs games, another was music, and the last one was biomedical engineering. Although we all came here for very different academic reasons, we all had so much fun together. We live right next to the LAFC stadium and in between classes, I’ve gone to soccer games with my roommates before. There would be late night taco runs where we would all squeeze in my SUV to get there. Then, my favorite part were all the times that I would just chill with different suitemates, just getting to know them better. Being in the dorm was one of the best parts of freshman year, but there were still so many other advantages of living on campus.
While on campus, everyone is required to get a meal plan. The base plan is unlimited swipes at the dining hall, while the premium plan includes dining dollars that work at different USC on-campus restaurants. I used to love having the unlimited meal plan. Not because I wanted to eat 10 times a day, but because of the convenience to grab a quick snack whenever you wanted to. I played recreational flag football with some friends and every time after the game we could go into the Parkside dining hall and grab a quick soft serve. If I was in the mood for a crepe, the Village dining hall had a station open for most of the day. While studying at Leavey library with friends, we could always go to EVK for a study break. It was super convenient to just be able to swipe in grab some grub, then continue on with my day.
The last part that I wanted to emphasize about my on campus living experience is there are no limits on who you meet and where they live. Some of my best friends lived in Pardee Tower, McCarthy, and Birnkrant residential colleges. It was always fun being guested up and hanging out with all these different people I met freshman year. I met people from all over through welcome week, classes, clubs, and by simply sitting next to a stranger at a dining hall. The plethora of people you meet during freshman year is why it’s such an exciting time. With that being said, the most important thing to remember is no matter where you choose to live freshman year, living at USC will be one of the best experiences of your life.
